Picture of Beverly Bancroft’s collection of each edition of John’s books from all over the world. © John Berger Estate
John Berger (1926-2017) published around 30 books solo or in collaboration with the photograph Jean Mohr (1925-2018). He also collaborated with Nella Bielski, Katya Berger Andreadakis, Selçuk Demirel, John Christie, Anne Michaels, Yves Berger and editors such as Geoff Dyer, Maria Nadotti and Tom Overton. He wrote in English and he has been translated into 49 languages.
John Berger’s bibliography
- A Painter of Our Time (1958)
- Permanent Red (1960)
- The Foot of Clive (1962)
- Corker’s Freedom (1964)
- The Success and Failure of Picasso (1965)
- A Fortunate Man (1967) with Jean Mohr
- Art and Revolution: Ernst Neizvestny And the Role of the Artist in the U.S.S.R (1969)
- The Look of Things: Selected Essays and Articles (1972)
- Ways of Seeing (1972)
- G (1972)
- A Seventh Man (1975) with Jean Mohr
- TRILOGY Into Their Labours : Pig Earth (1979), Once in Europa (1986), Lilac and Flag (1990)
- About Looking (1980)
- Another Way of Telling (1982) with Jean Mohr
- And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos (1984)
- The Sense of Sight (1985)
- Keeping a Rendez-vous (1992)
- Pages of the Wound (1994)
- To the Wedding (1995)
- Photocopies (1996)
- King: A Street Story (1999)
- The Shape of a Pocket (2001)
- Here is Where We Meet (2005)
- Hold Everything Dear (2007)
- The Red Tenda of Bologna (2007)
- From A to X (2008)
- Why Look at Animals? (2009)
- Bento’s Sketchbook (2011)
- Collected Poems (2014)
- Confabulations (2016)
2015 “Some Notes About Song (for Yasmine Hamdan)” manuscript extract, published in Confabulations (2016) © John Berger Estate
John Berger wrote numerous articles that appeared regularly in newspapers around the world, such as : The Guardian, The New Statesman, Harper’s, Art Review, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, Brick, Le Monde Diplomatique, El País, La Jornada, Clarin, Corriere Della Serra, Internazionale, Die Neue Rundschau, Aftonbladet… Most of his articles have then been published in his books of essays.
John Berger’s texts compiled by editors
Edited by Geoff Dyer : • Selected Essays (2001) • Understanding A Photograph (2013)
Edited by Maria Nadotti (only in Italian) : • Modi di Vedere (2004) • Abbi cara ogni cosa (2007) • La Speranza, nel frattempo (conversation with Arundhati Roy, 2010) • Contro i nuovi tirani (2012) • Sulla Motocicletta (2018)
Edited by Jim Savage : • Berger on Drawing (2005)
Edited by Tom Overton : • Portraits (2015) • Landscapes (2016) • The Underground Sea : Miner and the Miners’ Strike (also edited by Matthew Harle, 2024)
Edited by John Christie : Swimming Pool (with Leon Kossoff’s works, 2020)
« Writing, however, is an off-shoot of something deeper and more general – our relationship with language as such. »
From “Self-Portrait” in Confabulations (2016)
John Berger’s collaborations
- Here is a non exhaustive list of his collaborations :
- with the photographer Jean Mohr for • A Fortunate Man (1967) • A Seventh Man (1975) • Another Way of Telling (1982) • At the Edge of the World (1999)
- with Nella Bielski for • A Question of Geography (1987) • Goya’s last portrait (1989) • Isabelle: A Story in Shorts (1998)
- with Katya Berger for • Titian : Nymph and Shepherd (1996) • Mantegna : Lying Down to Sleep (2010)
- with the cartoonist Selçuk Demirel for • Man on a Beach (1998) • Cataract (2012) • Smoke (2016) • What time is it? (2018)
- with John Christie for • I Send You This Cadmium Red (2000) • Four Horizons (with also Sisters Lucia Kuppens and Telchilde Hinkley, 2015) • Lapwing & Fox (2016)
- with the photographer Marc Trivier for • My Beautiful (2004)
- with the painter Marisa Camino for • Entries (2005) • Como crece una pluma (2005) • Cartas a Marisa Camino (2018)
- with the painter Liane Birnberg for • Word from a foreign language (2006) • Because wings are made to fly (2011) • Garden to my cheek (2016)
- with Yves Berger for • Le Blaireau et le Roi (2010) • Par la Fenêtre (with also Emmanuel Favre, 2009) • Disparate de Fuendetodos (2013) • Desde el taller (with also Emmanuel Favre, 2015) • Flying Skirts (2015) • Over to you (2019)
- with Anne Michaels for • Railtracks (2011)
- John Berger also wrote with or for many artists such as Gilles Aillaud, Maggi Hambling, Christoph Hänsli, Atziri Carranza…
John Berger’s miscellanous books
- John Berger translated three books in english :
- with Anna Bostock Poems on the Theatre by Bertold Brecht (1961)
- with Anna Bostock Return to my Native Land by Aimé Césaire (1969)
- with Rema Hammami Mural by Mahmoud Darwish (2017)
- John Berger wrote artist catalogues :
- Guttuso (1957)
- Dürer (1985)
- Velasquez Äsop (1991)
1990s in Quincy, John Berger writing, contact print by Jean Mohr © John Berger Estate
Other books about John Berger
Edited by Nikos Papastergiadis : What John Berger Saw (1999)
Written and edited by Olivier Cohen : Pour saluer John Berger (2002, in french)
Edited by Di Robson and Gareth Evans : John Berger – A Season in London (2005)
Edited by Maria Nadotti : John Berger (2005, in italian)
Edited by Yasmin Gunaratnam with Amarjit Chandan : A Jar of wild flowers, essays in celebration of John Berger (2016)
Edited by Amarjit Chandan, Gareth Evans and Yasmin Gunaratnam : The Long White Thread of Words, poems for John Berger (2016)
Edited by Jim Savage : John by Jean (2016)
Edited by John Christie : Seeing Through Drawing (2017)
Written by Andy Merryfiels : John Berger (2017)
Written by Joshua Sperling : A Writer of Our Time: The Life and Work of John Berger (2018)
Written by Iona Eath : Ways of learning: John Berger (2018)
Written by Nikos Papastergiadis : John Berger and me (2024)
Written by Tom Overton : Biography soon to be published (2025)
